Olive Kitteridge
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and an Emmy-Award Winning Mini Series! In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge. Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *Olive Kitteridge* showcases Elizabeth Strout's exceptional writing, praised for its rhythm and deep character exploration. Many appreciat...
This is a novel more about a person than about a plot. I found it a thought-provoking book with a lot of insight about life.
Loved this book. Olive is an ornery old coot living in small-town Crosby, Maine, and she's at times funny, frustrating, irritating, infuriating, sympathetic, but you can't wait to find out what happens next, or, in some cases, what happened before. Told as a series of short stories, it also focuses on other people in the town, but Olive is the center of this universe.
I don't really get why this won the Pulitzer. It was ok, but I didn't enjoy it. I don't really get how all the pieces fit together. I don't know...maybe I'm too shallow or this book's too deep.
I did not enjoy the format: a series of short stories with the main character woven throughout the novel. My least favorite part of any book is the first chapter or so where you are learning the characters and the setting. After that, I enjoy reading their story. In this book, it was like first chapter after first chapter followed by first chapter, etc. Ugh. Takes too much mental energy to learn new characters every chapter. I also found the whole book to be depressing, without a real plot except living a day in the life of a dysfunctional, depressed, mean woman.
I think I’ll rate this book 3.5 stars. I did enjoy it. I really liked Olive. It wasn’t until after finishing the book that I found out that it is actually a collections of short stories. I would have liked it better if wasn’t.
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